U.S. legislators come to Hobby Lobby's defense in contraception lawsuit

A group of U.S. senators and representatives came to the defense of Hobby Lobby this week, accusing the Obama administration of violating a federal law the legislators contend protects the religious liberty of private business owners.

The congressional brief states that Congress created RFRA as a "super-statute" to cut across all federal laws that burden the free exercise of religion and to protect religious freedom from special interest politics. They point out how an attempt during debate of the bill to restrict the religious rights of prison inmates was rejected, vindicating "the one-rule-for-everybody principle reflected in RFRA’s text and structure."

To override RFRA's blanket protection, the government must show a law furthers a compelling government interest and uses the least restrictive means of applying that law.

The government included contraception, along with several other services, in the ACA's preventative health care mandate to promote women's health. The services are to be provided for free through worker health care plans. The government has also proposed third parties can provide contraception coverage for religious employers who object to contraception.

But the legislators contend the administration undermined its compelling interest and violated RFRA when it decided to exempt some religious employers from the contraception mandate and not others. Churches and some nonprofits are exempt, but most religiously affiliated schools and hospitals along with all for-profit businesses, like Hobby Lobby, must comply or face fines.

The brief also argues that corporations were intended to be protected under RFRA.

"Congress could have carved out such a category of unprotected 'persons' in RFRA itself or in a later statute, but it did not," the brief states. "And this judicially created carve-out is directly contrary to one of the primary reasons Congress enacted RFRA in the first place: to prevent those charged with implementing the law from picking and choosing whose exercise of religion is protected and whose is not."

In a motion opposing Hobby Lobby's request to block enforcement of the mandate, the government offers a different interpretation of RFRA, saying Congress intended for the law to apply only to religious employers that "rely on religion as a reason to deny employees protections of federal law" and not to private corporations.

The government said granting Hobby Lobby an exemption to the birth control mandate would have far-reaching implications. "(Hobby Lobby's) position would extend to for-profit, secular employers the very prerogatives that Congress — and the Constitution — have reserved for religious employers alone, and it would undermine a wide array of measures that protect the general welfare through corporate regulation."

Popular Comments

Hobby Lobby is an employer, not the employee's pastor. You lost my
business.

6:33 a.m. Feb. 21, 2013

Top comment

one old man

Ogden, UT

If, somehow, this had been a requirement set up by the Medicare Part D law
passed under Bush, it would not be an issue to Republicans.

But Obama
is in the White House, so things are completely different.

8:25 a.m. Feb. 21, 2013

Top comment

ChuckGG

Gaithersburg, MD

This all seems a bit odd to me. I thought ACA's latest revisions included
optional birth control, for free, not paid for by any of the insured or their
employers, and certainly not mandated, except that it is available as an option
from a
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Matt is an enterprise team editor. Before, he wrote about faith how it is lived, how it intersects with society and how current trends affect religious practice. He has worked for more than 12 years as an editor, most more ..